French Regulators Fine Apple $1.2 Billion for Anti-Competitive Behavior

France's competition watchdog on Monday fined Apple 1.1 billion euros ($1.2 billion) for anti-competitive behavior in its distribution network and an abuse of economic dependence on its resellers, reports Reuters.
Two of Apple's wholesalers, Tech Data and Ingram Micro, were fined 63 million euros and 76 million euros respectively, for unlawfully agreeing on prices, the authority said.

"Apple and its two wholesalers have agreed not to compete with each other and to prevent distributors from competing with each other, thereby sterilizing the wholesale market for Apple products," it said.

Apple in its October earnings call said that France's competition authority had alleged that some aspects of its sales and distribution practices were in violation of French law, but did not provide details on which aspects of its business were under investigation.

Apple earlier this year was fined 25 million euros by French consumer fraud group DGCCRF for intentionally slowing down iPhone 6, ‌‌iPhone‌‌ SE, and ‌‌iPhone‌‌ 7 models with the power management software that was meant to prevent older iPhones with degraded batteries from shutting down during times of peak power usage.
Tag: France

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